


Trapped, Then and Now

by Merfilly



Category: Transformers: Shattered Glass
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Community: tf_speedwriting, Flashback, M/M, Minor Character Death, Mirror Universe, Trapped
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-09
Updated: 2011-08-09
Packaged: 2017-10-22 10:32:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/237142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Starscream's trapped, and he remembers sharing another's fate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trapped, Then and Now

_::GO!::_

_The force of the hurled command wrenched a sob from an overtaxed vocalizer, adding to the damage that would leave the mech with a strident, harsh tone for all his existence barring replacement._

_He could not descend beneath the cover of the storm, with its paralyzing lightning mixed into deadly ice and winds._

_Skyfire could not fight his way above them._

_Starscream vowed to wait, to hover in a locked orbit just outside the atmosphere for the storm to end. He had no idea how long that would take; the violence of the storm was induced by how young and volatile the planet itself was, corrupted by strange carbon formations within its oceans that showed complex chemical activity. Skyfire and he had been debating if it was a form of life, one reason they had not sensed the storm until far too late._

`~`~`~`~`

Skywarp growled in frustration. "It's too dark, and he's too..."

Thundercracker moved and wrapped his arms around his bond-mate. "Shh, I know, I know. Megatron is on his way."

"But what if Star's processor breaks under this?!"

Both Seekers looked at the collapsed ravine wall, and knew that was too real a possibility.

`~`~`~`~`

_Starscream had been with Skyfire since second frame upgrade, the point that both had been given wings at last. They had trained together, because the trine that had created Starscream believed it was best for their brightly inquisitive Emberling to go into a duo with a transport. If they became a trine in the future, that would be their choice, but Starscream, adored creation that he was, was going to start life with a firm grounding in at least one other flier, to save him from his imagination and ideas._

_At third framing, Skyfire had taken Starscream away, claiming him as not just a duo-partner, but a bond-mate in the tightest coding the transport could write. They were perfect together, a fact Starscream did not dispute, and even encouraged. With the coding they shared, they would always, no matter what distance separated them, know what was happening to the other._

_Such as right now. The storm raged, keeping Starscream from a course of search and rescue. He could only wait in space, feeling as every passing moment added to the weight of ice building on the transport trapped below. Never before had space felt so cold, so lonely, as it did now that Skyfire was trapped, imprisoned by ice he did not have the energy to melt quickly enough. Worse, his efforts to melt some of it had introduced moisture into the lines of his own frame, seeping in to refreeze where systems were struggling to maintain any function at all._

_Starscream whimpered as he felt the first plate of Skyfire's armor buckle._

_He screamed, though, when the ice inside his mate began to tear cables and tubing alike in its relentless expansion._

`~`~`~`~`

Megatron started to transform even as Shockwave did. Soundwave's symbionts ranged all along the collapsed ravine, holding sensors so they could triangulate the location of the trapped Seeker perfectly. This was only going to get one truly good try, because there was every likelihood that if they did not cut Starscream free on the first try, they would only find a deactivated frame after the ground subsided again.

::Hold onto him in your bonds!:: Megatron roared at Thundercracker and Skywarp, the first sign that he was absolutely desperate for this to work. It also meant that Starscream's mental state was trickling out further than just his trine, reaching to those he trusted most in an instinctive attempt to protect himself.

`~`~`~`~`

_::Skyfire?::_

_::~black pain pressure~::_

_The sensations had not let up since the last push of a falling sensation that had ended with heavy weight pressing in on Starscream's chest and making a wing ache in the pain of being bent. All of his phantom pain, though, was nothing compared to what his bond-mate was going through._

_::I'm coming. The storm's gone.::_

_::Promise... don't …::_

_The fading of the signal made Starscream call, over and over, but the answer would not come any more than all of Starscream's frantic grasping at the bond and all his sensor data could reveal where the fierce giant had fallen._

`~`~`~`~`

The two cannons fired simultaneously, final control of when having been given to Soundwave, who was linked in to his symbionts and the two weapon-formers. The power they unleashed vaporised a solid section that had been been pinning Starscream beneath the ravine wall. His wing tip was scorched by Shockwave's beam, but the Seeker never even noticed that any further than he noted the open air and light let in around him.

Megatron was into mech form and down to the Seeker before his trine mates could pull out of their trance-like state of trying to anchor Starscream. The larger framed mech gently, carefully pulled the ball of a distraught Seeker out of the rest of the fragments of the wall, and turned toward Astrotrain's direction to get him loaded. Shockwave and Soundwave turned to help the trine-mates, while the symbionts processed the communication needs.

First one on the list was to tell Bombshell to be waiting; his patient was coming back in for therapy, in worse shape than possibly ever before.

`~`~`~`~`


End file.
